Sunday, December 24, 2023

Sunday, December 24, 2023

 

   I went to church with Judy and Paulette, as I usually do. Meali’inani was sitting on the south lanai where I sat. It was lovely seeing her again. She usually goes to the seven am mass. Sandor, her husband and a deacon Mike helped train, frequently serves at the nine am mass. I get to see him more. I got up to hold the door to the church for a frail elderly man. When I got back to my seat, Meali’inani was chortling. “I watch you hold the door for people younger than you.”

   When I got home, I noticed a dent in the rear driver-side door of the loaner Kia gave me while my car waited to be repaired. I hadn’t seen it before. There is no way I could be responsible for it. I drove it home directly. The dent looks like a parking lot incident. No one parks next to me in the driveway, and I hadn’t driven it since I brought it home.

   I met with Mama K’s crew, three children: fourth-grade twin girls A & E and their fifth-grade brother K. K has been avoiding his sessions with me. When his mother discovered what he was doing, she put her foot down. When I did get him in a session, he dragged his feet. It was grueling. I confronted him. “your mom insists you work with me. if you drag your feet, it will take longer.” Then I realized that I could pick a book he might enjoy more. I had been using Stuart Little. I thought Hatchet might suit him better. I purchased it in the Kindle form from Amazon.

   Twin A is rocking it. Suddenly, she knows words I’ve never shown her. She can retrieve words she has repeatedly seen in school over the past four years. Syllable patterns also become part of our ‘sight vocabulary,” like an, in, ane, and ine, etc. Having those securely embedded in our memory and easily retrievable allows us to figure out words at lightning speed. Twin E still lags behind.

    Introverts choose not to do or say anything when in doubt. Extroverts take risks. Neither is good in an extreme form. I had to learn to tone down. But I find introverts toxic. From what I can see, they assume they never do anything wrong because they do nothing. The standard confession in the church says.

  I confess to Almighty God

  And to you, my brothers and sisters,

   That I have greatly sinned,

    In my thoughts and in my words,

     In what I have done

      And what I have failed to do.

  Doing nothing does not mean a person does no harm to others.